1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fasteners for attaching a substrate to a bone, and more particularly to fasteners for anchoring soft tissue or bone plates to bone.
2. Prior Art
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,580,936, 4,859,128, 4,877,362, 5,030,050, 5,441,500, 5,489,210, 5,713,903, 5,968,044, 5,417,712, 5,501,695, 5,522,845, 5,571,104 and 6,290,701 there are disclosed a variety of anchors for attaching suture, bone and/or soft tissue to bone. The foregoing patents further disclose a number of installation tools for deploying the anchors disclosed therein. Complete details of the construction and operation of these anchors and their associated installation tools are provided in the above-identified patents, which patents are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Other prior art bone-engaging substrate fastening means often employ several straight or curved cantilevered barbs, where the barbs may be elastically deformed to permit insertion into a hole drilled in a bone. These fasteners are well known in medical applications wherein the need for high holding strength has lead to the development of anchors having multiple cantilevered barbs. In any case, the body, the attachment means, and the bone-engaging means mechanically cooperate with one another to fasten a suture, bone portion, soft tissue, prosthesis, post or other substrate to a bone.
In the other embodiments of the prior art, expandable bone fasteners include a body and a plurality of barbs that are formed of material which may be elastically deformed from normal configuration to anchor to the bone tunnel. Such fasteners, however, generally lack an expansion pin and may be retracted only by drilling. These types of anchors may migrate and they are difficult to locate in the event they need to be removed.
Other prior art expansion pins, or functionally similar expansion pins having slidable elements used to expand the legs of the expandable bone fasteners, include a breakaway portion which is not implanted in the bone with the expandable bone fastener. On certain embodiments of the prior art expandable bone fasteners, tension must be applied to the expansion pin in order to expand the legs of the expandable bone fastener. It will, therefore, be understood by the artisan that anchoring devices, such as those taught in the above-referenced patents, generally comprise an anchor body, attachment means for attaching the desired object to the anchor body, and one or more barbs, pins, ridges, threads, or other bone-engaging means for holding the anchor body securely to the bone. Typically, the bone-engaging means is either manufactured separately from the body and then attached to the body by an assembly step, or is machined/milled from the body itself.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a fastener for securing tissue to bone which will have a predictable and sufficient initial anchorage strength to permit gradual load sharing to provide full repair and restoration of function of the tissue and bone. There exists a further need for a expandable bone fastener device having a novel expansion pin, which may be elastically deformed from normal configuration, wherein the outer ends of its barbs extend outwardly of the body toward a surrounding bone and to easily, rapidly and reliably anchored to the bone, as the expansion pin is retractable from a fully extended position. There exists a further need for an expandable bone fastener device that can be easily removed from the bone without the need for drilling in the event complications arise either during or after the surgery.
In accordance with the present invention, expandable bone fasteners are provided which are operable for attaching either an autogenous substrate such as tissue, or an exogenous substrate such as a bone plate, to a bone. Embodiments of the expandable bone fasteners are adapted to meet the variety of demands presented by various surgical procedures employed during orthopedic, plastic and reconstructive surgery. The expandable bone fasteners of the present invention include absorbable, nonabsorbable and hybrid embodiments.
It is a first object of the invention to provide a device which may be used to attach a material substrate to a bone.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a bone fastener device which may be anchored securely in an untapped hole drilled in a bone.
It is another object of the invention to provide a bone fastener device meeting the above objectives which may be permanently implanted in a bone
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a bone fastener device which will remain anchored in bone for a predetermined period of time after implantation.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a bone fastener device having barbs thereon and adapted to be inserted into a hole drilled in a bone, the barbs being expandable into the surrounding bone in various angles and positions with respect to the vertical axis of the hole, and retractable from the surrounding bone.
It is another object of the invention to provide an bone fastener adapted for insertion into a hole drilled into a bone, the bone fastener having an elongate body portion with a longitudinal axis, and an expansion pin slidably mounted within the body portion and having a plurality of barbs located in circumferentially spaced relation about the expansion pin and disposed to project radially outwardly from the body portion in various angles and positions with respect to the longitudinal axis to penetrate into the bone as the expansion pin is slidably retracted from within the body portion.
It is another object of the invention to provide an improved method for attaching a substrate to a bone.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a bone fastener, which may be non-absorbable, partially absorbable or totally absorbed by the body following implantation therein.
It is another object of the invention to provide a bone anchoring device comprising a plurality of expandable barbs, wherein the penetration depth of the barbs into surrounding bone is controllable.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide an expandable bone fastener adapted for insertion into a hole in a bone, thereafter to be expanded to provide non-releasable engagement between the expandable bone fastener and the wall of the hole.
The features of the invention believed to be novel are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. However the invention itself, both as to organization and method of operation, together with further objects and advantages thereof may be best understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which: